Best of the Sales: European Christmas Sales Edition

With more options than you can shake a stylus at, Daan has suggestions for European eShoppers.

The Christmas season is upon us and that means sales, sales, sales on the Nintendo eShop. Naturally, it is hard to assess the quality of the sales when there’s so many, but we’ve plowed through the list to give you 20 of the best deals this holiday for the European eShop.

Wii U

Teslagrad - €4.49/£4.19 (Ends January 5, normally €14.99/£13.99)

The act of telling a powerful story is a difficult art to master. With Teslagrad, Rain Games brought their A game and gave us a very deep experience. What helps is that your polarity powers are incredibly fun to play around with. They give strength to a six hour campaign that you want to see through until the end!

PictoParty - €3.99/£3.50 (Ends January 5, normally €7.99/£7.00)

Pictionary is a fun game by itself, but being digital is the next logical step. PictoParty brings the feeling of the game home with a solid feature set and a large number of built-in words. Where it truly shines is that you can make your own unique lists and share them with over others over Miiverse. This will make the fun never stop!

We have said a lot about Image & Form's strategy game and it is an absolute no brainer to include it. The gameplay offers tons of options in how you plan your moves, which makes the experience feel fresh until the very end. The lovable characters also drive you to keep playing.

How do you improve a brilliant sidescrolling strategy game? By pushing back twice as hard! The three classes in this sequel have more to them, and the strategy gameplay has been more finely tuned than before. Add to that the increased detail in the art style and a storyline that oozes with charm and it’s a must buy.

Runbow - €6.99/£5.49 (Ends January 5, normally €13.99/£10.99)

Runbow's excellent multiplayer modes, which can be played locally and online, are still keeping me engaged. Every person I play with gets overjoyed at a victory or screams when he or she loses. It is a game where everyone can have a brilliant time together and no one feels left out. Everyone can pick it up and everyone can master it.

ZombiU - €7.99/£6.39 (Ends December 29, normally €19.99/£15.99)

One of the more unsung heroes from Ubisoft's Wii U launch line-up, it was the first survival horror game I enjoyed in a while. With smart usage of the Wii U GamePad and a sense of dread, ZombiU roped you in almost immediately. Add to that a throwaway but neat multiplayer mode, and you have a grand time killing zombies.

Tengami - €3.99/£3.49 (Ends January 5, normally €7.99/£6.99)

Go out and discover a wonderfully crafted world in Tengami! It is a game that will help you relax, and trigger your brain at the right moments. The puzzles never become too hard, but they are beyond clever in ways I didn't expect. Even after multiple runthroughs, there is no hesitation to jump into this world.

Blek - €2.74/£2.24 (Ends January 5, normally €5.49/£4.49)

If you are searching for a puzzler with unexpected depth, you have found your match with Blek. The goal of the game is to draw a line that manages to hit all of the colored circles and none of the black ones. This is simple at first, but the difficult ramps up as you work through its 60 puzzles. Get ready to tear your hair out!

RACE THE SUN - €2.99/£2.09 (Ends January 5, normally €9.99/£6.99)

Fly your airship with precision in the endless world of RACE THE SUN! Your goal is to fly your ship through hostile environments while keeping the sun at bay. You do this by picking up power ups and using them at the correct intervals. In every round you play, you try to complete missions and unlock new features as the sun sets again!

PONCHO - €4.49/£3.99 (Ends January 5, normally €8.99/£7.99)

I love myself a good puzzle platformer, which is a niche that PONCHO fills perfectly. You follow the journey of a small robot who tries to find out what happened to his creator. With mechanics where you switch between layers of the environment, PONCHO is a game that will keep surprising you.

Nintendo 3DS

Gotcha Racing - €2.99/£2.49 (Ends December 29, normally €5.99/£4.99)

Gotcha Racing may seem like a simple racing game, but looks can be quite deceiving. You will need to perform in this game, constantly upgrade your tiny car and deal with ever-improving opposition. A nice touch is how the gameplay spans over both screens, which is an impressive sight.

If arcade games are your bread and butter, you will adore Space Lift Danger Panic. The concept is incredibly simple: Catch the guys falling from above in increasingly harsher challenges. That doesn't sound like much, but Space Lift Danger Panic kept it novel throughout.

Quell Momento - €1.99/£1.99 (Ends January 12, normally €3.99/£3.99)

At first glance, Quell Momento seems too simple. It is a puzzle game where you control a bubble through various mazes, so I didn't gave it much thought. There is, however, an interesting story associated with the journey: a voice that guides you through and watches over every step you make. I wanted to keep going and keep pushing for the end just to see what the narrator would say next.

Who likes some Mega Man? If you raised your hand and don't own the Mega Man Legacy Collection, then my first question is: ''Why?'' It brings the best of the classic NES games in a single package and gives you tons of extras to keep you entertained. The remix levels truly give your reflexes a workout!

Pirate Pop Plus - €2.24/£2.04 (Ends January 5, normally €4.49/£4.09)

PANG is one of my favorite classic games. This feeling was brought back by the good folks at 13AM Games with their Pirate Pop Plus. The game features the true look and feel of a classic handheld game, but with benefits. While popping bubbles is still the main course, the gravity mechanics bring a fantastic flavor to the ride.

BIT.TRIP SAGA - €4.99/£4.49 (Ends January 5, normally €19.99/£17.99)

Despite RUNNER not looking too hot here, there is a solid time to be had with BIT.TRIP SAGA. The way you play BEAT and FLUX with the stylus feels fantastic and VOID never felt better with the Circle Pad. My deepest desire is that the creators go back and update this title for the New Nintendo 3DS: it would make this collection flawless.

Capcom is back with another solid collection. If you never played an Ace Attorney game, this is the place to start. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy offers the first three games in a single package with a sharper look for the Nintendo 3DS. It helps that the games are funny beyond belief, which keep you going until those late hours.

Hazumi - €1.34/£0.99 (Ends January 5, normally €2.69/£1.99)

Hazumi is a game that I don't see discussed very often. It is an incredibly charming puzzler that combines breakout and strategy in a coherent package. Hazumi is a game that builds on the momentum of the previous stage, but with a new twist at every turn. The constant slew of changes is positive and makes for an experience that doesn't grow stale.

Back when the WiiWare game was still strong, Rage of the Gladiator was one of my favorites. With the Nintendo 3DS version, you get the charm of a fantasy Punch-Out!! right at your finger tips. As you uncover the layers of your opponents, going for that critical knockout is what truly matters.

SteamWorld Dig - €1.79/£1.39 (Ends January 4, normally €8.99/£6.99)

The original SteamWorld game on the Nintendo 3DS is still a fun one. This sidescrolling action game sees you digging for minerals and uncovering the mysteries of a strange world. With the iconic Rusty at your disposal, you traverse with speed from point A to B in quick succession. That feeling of fun will never go quite away!

Talkback

I picked up Assassins Creed Black Flag, and is surprisingly really good game, I'm also surprised how good it looks running on Wii U too. I played original AC and AC2 which is meant to be height of series but Italian climbing man adventure bored me fast. Maybe its because as a young lad I loved Sid Meier's Pirates that I have affinity with this game.

I picked up Assassins Creed Black Flag, and is surprisingly really good game, I'm also surprised how good it looks running on Wii U too. I played original AC and AC2 which is meant to be height of series but Italian climbing man adventure bored me fast. Maybe its because as a young lad I loved Sid Meier's Pirates that I have affinity with this game.

Honestly quite a few of those Ubisoft ports are pretty solid. AC4 especially, but Splinter Cell Blacklist also had a great Wii U version.

I know we always complain about getting 3rd party titles late, but the Deus Ex, NBA 2k13 and Batman City ports were good too on Wii U. While I'm sure there's counterexamples (maybe Watch-Dogs or Sonic Racing Transformed), a lot of the ports we got were pretty good I think.